


anaphora

by ranchboiii



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Briefly mentioned symptoms of PTSD, M/M, Post Season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 18:03:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15977588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranchboiii/pseuds/ranchboiii
Summary: Keith makes Shiro coffee.





	anaphora

It’s early morning. Dawn yawns across the horizon in a blend of pale blue sky and cream yellow clouds. There’s no snow or frost on the ground, but the desert steppe cracks like chapped lips. One look outside and Keith knows it’s frigid beyond the threshold of the shack. 

The shack would be just as cold but they’d more or less kept the fire going all night, never straying too far from its warmth nor each other. In his head, Keith bookended his return to earth with the face-off against Sendak and learning that Shiro returned his feelings, so now it felt like all they could do was catch up on being physically close for all the time they had missed out on it. It meant that Shiro went wherever Keith followed and vice versa. While he sometimes worried they were acting too much like lost puppies trailing each other, Keith couldn’t say that he didn’t like the dependency they were cultivating. Keith had held himself up for so long with skinny tentpoles, makeshift rope, jury rigged support beams, all the while Shiro had held up the whole world on his aching back, his tearing and stretching muscles. Now seemed like a better time than ever to learn how to allow others to carry some of that load.

With this thought, the final weight of sleep slips from Keith’s eyes and he’s fully awake.

It’s early morning. Keith’s circadian rhythm is linked with the wee hours like forged metal, something he can’t shake off no matter how he tries. So he doesn’t try today, not more than any other. Instead, he pulls on a pair of fleece socks, tucks the blanket tighter around Shiro’s shoulders, and shrugs into a pullover.

Before he leaves the couch for the kitchenette, he indulges in a long look at Shiro’s peaceful, sleeping face.

It’s early morning and while Shiro used to be an early riser as well, he’d been prone to sleeping in ever since Allura had brought him back. The others liked to joke that his spiritual journey had been arduous, but Keith feared that it was something deeper and far more sinister. Like all that time in the astral plane Shiro was denied of any rest of any kind. That his body was catching up with the laborious, exhaustive experience.

As these thoughts wash over him for the umpteenth time Keith tries to shake them loose, visualizing emptying a piggy bank. Before he turns away from Shiro, he consciously decides to think about something else, tired of getting stuck in the sad loop every time he sees his shock of white hair, the new crease between his eyebrows, the jagged line of his scar. 

Instead, he thinks about how he’d like to kiss Shiro when he wakes up, then hand him a mug of steaming coffee. He thinks about how he won’t care that they both have terrible morning breath, even after they’ve finished their first cup. He thinks about stoking the fire, first in the hearth and then between them.

Finally emotionally ready to take on the kitchenette, Keith turns on the old percolator to brew his Folgers. Then he sets the kettle boiling and works the french press that Iverson had bought Shiro as an apology to steep Shiro’s fancy coffee. 

These mundane tasks are all that have been able to ground him since their return to Earth, where nothing feels right except for the wee hours, the smell of cheap grounds mixing with more refined aromas, and Shiro’s hard body against him.

He can fight it all he wants, but the truth keeps creeping back toward the cliff’s edge of his mind; he doesn’t belong here. He never has and he never will. For the moment, he belongs more than ever. But he knows it won’t last. It doesn’t feel real. None of this does.

The edge of the counter bites into the flesh of his hand and Keith realizes he’s in a white-knuckled grip, that his jaw is so clenched his teeth hurt. Letting it go, his hands and mandible are tight with flexion and the coffee is ready.

Ignoring the time lapse, Keith pulls out his only two mugs and pours the coffee in them accordingly. Shiro gets the smaller cup with no handle. Keith gets the bigger mug with a handle shaped like a pointed ear. Both mugs were ceramics his dad had made; the throwing wheel is still around the shack somewhere.

Keith returns to where the warmth is, carries the mugs to the mantel and stokes the fire, feeding the hungry embers with thick blocks of wood he’d dragged in before the temperatures had dropped low enough to freeze his nostrils. The flames soak up the wood like hungry little beasts, climbing atop them like grabby children.

Returning to his place beside Shiro, Keith gently cups his face and presses a feather-light kiss to his temple, then his high cheekbones, the apple of his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, the bow of his lips.

“Keith,” Shiro whispers, coming awake with a smile. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, my love,” Keith says, so quietly, his voice so smoke-filled, that his words are only audible in the spaces between their faces.

Shiro pulls the blanket tighter around himself and snuggles into Keith, playfully loathe to face the day. Keith peels the blanket open like flower petals and sticks his arms inside so he can embrace Shiro, feel how hot his back is against his cool hands. Lightly, he runs his fingernails over Shiro’s skin, laughs when Shiro shivers and goosebumps appear on his arms.

“It’s cold,” Shiro pouts when Keith finally pulls off of him, standing up and reaching for the mantel. Mugs in hand, Keith offers the little cup to Shiro who takes it gratefully, swallowing it in gulps. Without fail, Keith tries to do the same thing and spits his coffee back into his mug.

“It’s _hot_ ,” Keith squints, dreading how his tongue will feel for the next twenty-four hours now that it’s been scalded to hell and back.

“Cat’s tongue,” Shiro says in Japanese, eyes mirthful.

“Kiss it better?” Keith asks, raising a hopeful eyebrow despite the discomfort.

Shiro obliges him with a kiss that starts chaste and slow, but changes pace as he slips his tongue in to trace the seam of Keith’s lips, pushing deeper. Keith loses himself in the sensations until Shiro finally pulls away. 

“We taste terrible,” Shiro laughs, finishing off his coffee.

Still dizzy from the disarming kiss, Keith hides his face in Shiro’s shoulder, silently agreeing. When he hides there a little too long, Shiro places a large hand on Keith’s head and ruffles his hair affectionately.

It’s early morning and Keith is in love with his best friend. Whatever the future holds, wherever he ends up, he has this. 

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/ranchboiii)


End file.
